When power company executives were asked to list the most important issues facing their organizations, 45% overwhelmingly cited their top concern as “renewables, sustainability or the environment.” At the same time, global energy consumption continues to rise faster than the population. These two realities are reshaping the international energy sector. The push to produce more energy, in a greener manner, is propelling the industry to re-imagine the power grid of the future.

When conversations turn to digital transformation, it is usually smart phone apps, dizzying feats of AI, and domestic robots that capture all the attention. But the unsung heroes of I.T. know the truth: digital infrastructure is the foundation on which data-driven transformations are built. And increasingly we’re talking about two qualities digital infrastructure must possess if it is to be an effective backbone for digital transformation.

A more agile and efficient infrastructure is key to realizing the cost savings and productivity gains businesses needed to succeed in today’s highly competitive market. Recent surveys by Roger Magoulas & Steve Sawyer, May 19, 2020, show that 88% of enterprises are currently using cloud in some form or another. This adoption is not surprising as clouds have been around now for several decades since Amazon Web Services (AWS) was launched in 2002.

Forbes Insights defines the modernized data center as being built to change just as much as it is built to last. One of the key pillars for a modernized data center is an agile data infrastructure. The Forbes Insights briefing explains, “This means it’s not wedded to any specific deployment method or solution set.

“You’re crazy if you don’t start in the cloud; you’re crazy if you stay on it,” quips a recent blog post from Andreessen Horowitz. Many companies are surprised by cloud bills that have shot past their expectations. Indeed, IDC predicts increased investment in public cloud cost management through 2022 as enterprises seek to cut cloud waste by 50%. This is the Cloud Cost Paradox.

In financial services, data has always been viewed as a strategic asset. To manage this data, organizations have invested heavily over several years and across a number of technology generations in the underlying data infrastructure. This approach has left a large data technology legacy along with silos of data linked to specific infrastructure and applications.

In our modern digital society, data is abundant, and storage is affordable. Businesses, governments and even individuals can (and do) collect every transaction, click, swipe, location, message and attribute in their datasets. With just a few clicks on my smart device, I can review data on every place I’ve been, how much I spent, every step I took, what the weather was like and who I was with. Businesses collect the same abundance of data.

Does it feel like your business is paying too much for cloud services? You are not alone. Cloud costs are expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate of 10.5% to 13.1% through 2025, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC). While getting a handle on those cloud costs may be tricky, you don’t have to worry — we’ve got you covered.

Businesses are increasingly embracing a cloud-first approach to increase market responsiveness and flexibility. The cloud-first approach refers to a cloud-like experience consisting of on-demand metered consumption of IT infrastructure, whether on the public cloud or inside private data centers. The rapidly evolving consensus among the tech leaders and vendors has led to an emergence of hybrid IT.